Snowshoeing Winter 2011

You might have noticed, we love snowshoeing.  We've already been 3 times this year.  Thankfully it's easy to get gorgeous photos, so hopefully you won't be bored hearing about snowshoe trip after snowshoe trip.

Mon Viso from near our house

These past 2 trips (this weekend and the weekend before), we went to Limone Piemonte in the Vermenagna Valley.  I've written about Limone before because it's one of our favorite towns to visit.  It's on the way to Nice, so we often stop there when we're driving to Nice.  Also, the Motta's have an apartment there, so it's the perfect place to get away for a little while in winter and summer.  I love the Alps!

We came from down there.

So last Sunday we woke up and headed to Limone.  Just Olney, Fabri & I for these trips.  We had to be very flexible with these trips, so it was better to go just us.  The first one, Fabri had to work the night shift afterward, so we weren't having lunch in the mountains and just going for the morning.  It was great though.  We drove up the Via di Sol (a road right across the street from the apartment) until the road ended.  Then we jumped out and kept going up on snowshoes. 

Ice in the mountain stream

We forded some streams (a little worrisome) and eventually winded up at some old, abandoned stone houses.  They were cool, but a little creepy and I kept watching out for ghosts or crazy mountain people...

Yesterday we hit the same trail and did some more exploring.  We did a lot of "let's go up this slope" and then had to turn around when we reached a point we couldn't go any further.  We also played in the snow a lot which was fun. 

We only went for about an hour and a half that time because we were meeting Fabri's parents for lunch afterwards.  As we were getting back to the car which was parked on the road below a farmhouse, there were two GIANT dogs waiting for us.  They began barking at us when we were still way up above them and we were a bit nervous to get close to them.  Olney had already met the brown curly haired one with the bobbed tail when we arrived on the trail and he was friendly, so I told Fabri I think we should just keep going and get Olney into the car as quickly as possible.  It's scary when you meet giant dogs with no owner anywhere nearby.  Everything was fine though, there was a little bit of growling, but only for a second.  Olney's hair was standing on end, but we tried to keep moving until we got to the car and the big dogs decided there wasn't anything interesting about us anymore.  

We met Antonio and Maria Pia on our way down to the apartment in a snowy field near a sled hill.  Then we all went to the apartment so Fabri and I could change for lunch.  In the next post I will write about lunch which was super duper awesome and I can't wait to go back!